In destination floor elevator systems, each passenger wanting to enter an elevator gives at the building's landing level the destination floor to which he/she wants to travel. The destination floor is given by using a passenger data terminal specially reserved for this purpose, such a terminal being an extended version of a landing call button. The actual landing call button has been extended by adding a more versatile user interface allowing the user, i.e. the passenger, to indicate the floor that he/she wants to reach by elevator.
A destination floor elevator system like this and the passenger data terminal used in it for calling an elevator involve certain drawbacks. These drawbacks become apparent especially in an up-peak traffic situation, particularly in the mornings and at lunch time. These drawbacks include the following.
Especially during lunch hours, people using the buildings often go to lunch in groups with their own colleagues. However, in a prior-art destination floor elevator system, each passenger traveling on an elevator has to input his/her own destination floor to the destination floor elevator system independently. This naturally means that each passenger has to wait independently for his/her particular elevator allocated specially for him/her, although the passenger wants go to the same destination floor as another person belonging to the same group with him/her. A problem now arises as to how the users should behave in such a situation. Should each user stand in queue and await his/her own turn in order to give a call via the passenger data terminal and indicate his/her own destination floor to the destination floor elevator system. Further, even if the passenger should await his/her own turn in order to carry out these tasks via the passenger data terminal, he/she has to carry out these tasks and input his/her data. This takes time, on an average at least five seconds. On the other hand, if passengers do not await their own turn in order to input their destination floors to the destination floor elevator system and its passenger data terminal, then the elevator system will receive incomplete information as to the number of passengers actually traveling to a given destination floor.
In such a situation, the incomplete information received by the destination floor elevator system and especially its control system results in an impairment of the level of service provided by the elevator system to the passengers. It is obvious that if the elevator system had more accurate information regarding the number of passengers going to each destination floor, the elevators and the elevator system would be able to serve these passengers better. In prior-art solutions, the problem is that the elevators are filled prematurely and in an uncontrolled manner because not all members of a group traveling together let the system know that they are going to travel on the same elevator with the other members of the group.
Furthermore, even if the passengers should behave in a conventional destination floor elevator system like this in the manner described in the above-described ideal case, in other words, if each passenger awaited his/her own turn in order to use the passenger data terminal and gave accurate information regarding his/her own destination floor, there are still drawbacks apparent in this procedure. It is obvious that each passenger has to spend a specific amount of time, approximately five seconds, to input information concerning his/her destination floor and whether he/she belongs to a group. This means that the queues of people awaiting their turn at the passenger data terminal grow longer. An additional delay arises from the fact that the passenger can only indicate his/her destination floor when it is his/her turn to use the passenger data terminal and not immediately e.g. upon arrival in the building or when there appears a need for him/her to go to a given destination floor. Therefore, the information regarding the number of passengers and their destination floors reaches the destination floor elevator system and especially its control system later than would be necessary, and so the elevator allocation decisions have to be made on the basis of insufficient and belated information. As a consequence of this, the elevator allocation decisions are made with a delay and their quality is lower than in an ideal situation.